The Pilgrim to Megrim
by heelofpatroclus
Summary: Mycroft lost a bet, so he had to venture out into Greater London on footwork. On his way back to the office, a growing storm is rising in his mind and body. Whatever will he do? And why is Greg Lestrade fussing so much over it?
1. All Because of a Bet

**Disclaimer** : I do not own the original works for which I post fanfiction on this site, and write with the intent of enjoyment and further interaction with the original work.

 **A/N** : For those of us with migraines, please be forewarned that I'm writing from the POV of Mycroft with a migraine. I get them, and I channeled the feelings I could think of, as well as of people I know, to write this. Three cups of coffee while editing this chapter...

This started out as a prompt from Lavender_and_Vanilla and kind of ballooned from there. She's been kindly enough to give advice and put up with my rambling. So much rambling...

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The bus was crowded, and the beat of everyday life bustled about Mycroft Holmes and pounded in his ears. The faint smell of tar clung to the rough work shirt he was wearing, and he was sure that there was new asphalt scuffing the soles of his boots. The final insult was the fact that he was wearing uncomfortably tight jeans, to him at least. Anyone else would say they simply fit him.

Nothing about the outfit felt right—he was posing as some sort of blue collar worker. Just a touch of careful makeup to hide his pallor, and there was some greasy pomade slicking back his hair. Everything clashed, so he hoped that no one would see him until after he had changed back into his suit in his office.

Legwork was not his milieu, as he often liked to say, but he had lost a bet.

And now, he was trapped in the center of a crowded bus during the lunch rush hour—the miasma of everyday life invading every sense, the many people touching him. Everyone oblivious to him as they went about their business, his foot occasionally being stepped on by some unnoticing person. Mixed with the multitude of body odors was the cover of cheap perfume and aftershave. There hadn't been space for him to sit, so he stood in the fray of undulating bodies that knocked into him and pushed him whenever there was a bump or a tight turn. He'd swear that the old woman passing him by as she hobbled off had pinched his arse.

It had started with pain in his right jaw – where his wisdom teeth had been– the muscles tensing and tingling. The surgeon had confirmed that there was no reason for worry when he'd had his last root canal, but it didn't change the fact it still felt _wrong_ whenever this happened. It was his warning that the chain reaction of a migraine had started, and his stomach tightened with the first stirrings of nausea when he remembered the only Migraleve he had left was at his flat. He'd taken the last of it at the turn of spring. The joys of allergies and the changing of seasons to set off blooming grasses, flowers, and trees with the humidity to hold it all in the air.

Slowly, but surely, the sensation had spread up his cheekbone until it settled for a little while, luring him into a false sense of ease. He leaned on the arm gripping the bar above his head tightly to look around the person beside him to look out the window without having to actually move. At least he was almost at his stop.

It was when he had identified things he didn't want to think or know about strangers simply by sense of smell that he knew the air pressure was changing. Nothing more than a light rain. He sagged against his extended arm this time because his umbrella in the office for the sake of the meeting. The rain coupled with the bus, the asphalt, the greenery, and the fact he hadn't stopped to eat since breakfast all came to bash him over the head from the shadows.

Next, din of regular life around Mycroft went from pounding in his ears to stabbing his ear drums like icicles shredding through his nerves. Automatically, he shifted his hand to reach for an open strap as he moved slowly closer to the door. He tightened his grip on the strap to be able to shift his weight off his right shoulder some, looking from the window down to the floor before finally closing his eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity, his stop was finally called. It was two stops before the one he _wanted_ to use, but he couldn't get back too close to Whitehall. As it was, he would have to go back through the old tunnels of an adjacent building to make it back to his office. He ducked into an alleyway, his hands in his pockets, glancing up at a CC-tv camera before ducking into an ajar side door and firmly shutting it behind him. Mycroft slowly walked down the long flight of stairs, gripping the metal railing until his knuckles were white.

A vague feeling of nausea pulsed through him when he hit the tunnels – they'd been recently cleaned with bleach. The smell was heavy and almost sweet, but it burned at the same time. His head throbbed to the beat of his heart. After a few breaths, any memory of the smells on the bus had been replaced with a vaguely heady rush.

The muscles in his neck tightened with every step through the corridor, but as he moved silently from one hallway to another, only his boots clapping against the ground. As he crisscrossed under the buildings, the smell of the bleach lessened, only to be replaced by the smell of wet rock and mold. His right hand trailing lightly along the wall of the tunnel, Mycroft's fingertips just barely brushed against the rough concrete. It reminded him that the wall was there if he needed it to steady himself.

Each step through the tunnel echoed down the tunnel itself as well as reverberating in his head, his mind amplifying the sound so that it felt like the echoes were drumming on his skull. The warm, tingling came to the forefront of his mind again, much like a person stepping out of the mist into view. This time, it was accompanied by a dull, diffuse ache behind his right eye. When he was far enough from the competing smells of bleach and mold, Mycroft stopped to take a breath and lean his head against the wall. He closed his eyes and focused on the tenseness in his neck, massaging the back of his neck because, for a moment, he thought that might help.

The rough wall against his forehead was cool, and the bureaucrat willed the cool to seep into his face to ease the heat making his right eye burn. The ringing of a phone startled him out of his internal reverie. He pulled the unfamiliar phone out of the tight front pocket of his jeans and flipped it open. "Yes?" His voice was cool and collected as ever when he took a step back away from the wall.

"Where are you? I had expected—" Her voice on the phone's speaker was louder and tinnier than he had expected.

"My dear, I am returning as we speak. I will be there shortly."

He disconnected the call before she had a chance to respond.

Though he looked back at the wall in front of him longingly, Mycroft squared his shoulders and tried to briskly walk back to his office's hallway. By the time that he had made it back, however, Mycroft's head felt like lead upon his shoulders and his steps zigged and zagged. Anthea was waiting for him with a clothing bag containing a fresh suit. He took them from her with a muttered thank you before disappearing behind the mirror to the left of his desk, which hid a small lavatory.

She was still waiting for him when he stepped back out. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror after gently pushing it closed, slicking back slightly damp hair. "Was your… trip uneventful, sir?"

There was a pause before he responded. "Yes." His voice was even, but the smile on his face was thin and tight and didn't reach his eyes. "A good reminder to not make bets with Sir Edwin next time."

"Is there anything you need before I head home?"

"Just clear my schedule tomorrow…" He took a deep breath. "I need time to handle the information gained today—privately."

"Of course." She turned to walk away, but stopped. "If Sir Edwin asks for your report, sir?"

"Ah, tell him I am," Mycroft paused to lean against his desk, leaning his head against the heel of his right hand as if to think. "Verifying the information given before sharing."

Anthea nodded once, and her heels clicked as she continued to walk out of the office, closing the door softly behind her.

As soon as she had left the room, his shoulders slumped and he leaned more heavily against his desk as he rubbed at his eyes. Finally, he stood straight again and walked slowly around his desk to pull out his phone from the drawer. He had left the burner in the lavatory with the clothes—Anthea would likely deal with his disguise after he left. He had quit asking ages ago. It only took a moment for him to call for a car to pick him up, but there would be a ten-minute wait.

Normally, he'd continue working until a bit before the car showed up, so he wasn't waiting outside, but he didn't want to take any chances with the stairs. He knew that both the movement and the act of going upstairs would make his head pound ever harder and more frequently.

Apparently, there were new interns in the main offices upstairs – he could smell an unfamiliar perfume, cheap and vanilla-based as he walked through the upstairs corridors. His lip curled slightly as he kept trudging to the main doors, and he immediately was squinting upon opening them. In the early afternoon, the intensity of the sun shot through his right eye like a spear.

The air was heavy with the smell of rain and the acidic undertones of diesel fuel—the storm hadn't abated yet, and it seemed with every passing minute that Mycroft's head throbbed more. A few birds were chittering in a small cluster of dwarf trees. He had to side step a few small puddles to safeguard his patent leather soles. Only the familiar weight of the umbrella in his hand gave him a small measure of comfort. As he approached the curb, Mycroft spotted the town car a moment slower than he'd have preferred. He had looked at it, but for just a second, there was no recognition that it was what he had been looking for.

Sighing, he pulled the door open and slid into the backseat. The driver only had to tilt his head in Mycroft's direction after the door closed for Mycroft to say, "My flat, please, Louis. And if we could avoid the potholes, I'd be much… obliged."

The driver inclined his head before pulling back onto the street. He was always thankful for the smooth ride the town cars provided, but he had to resist the urge to rest his head against the glass of the window as they drove. The backseat was about the worst place that he could sit under the circumstances. The nausea returned with a passion, and there were the remnants of overly strong cologne from the last rider. Mercifully, Louis did as asked and tried to avoid the roads with the worst potholes, but that made for a more circuitous route. Even at the low speeds, Mycroft's stomach lurched at every turn.

When they'd finally arrived at his flat, Mycroft managed a polite thank you before stumbling out of the back of the car. After he'd taken a few steps, the car pulled away, and he was left leaning heavily on his umbrella. Times like these, he was thankful that his building had an elevator. He lived on the eighth floor. Though, if he ever moved again, he was taking a flat closer to the lift. His hands felt clumsy and heavy when he tried to fit the key into the lock, and it took several tries before he managed to push the key into the lock.

He pushed a little too hard on the door to close it and jumped a little at the slam. There was a click of the lock as he turned the bolt. Mycroft's usual routine was burnt into the back of his mind, and he did it without having to think about it: the umbrella went in the basket, the briefcase on the small table, his shoes on the mat.

Although he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first button on his shirt, Mycroft didn't do more than that as he slowly made his way to his bathroom and almost stumbled into the post of the bathroom door. Through the growing haze and fog, his mind repeated 'two pink now… two yellow if doesn't take' until he was holding what he was looking for, his mind acting separately from his body at this point. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he swallowed the two tablets dry, but the other hand grasped the bowl of the sink tightly to maintain his precarious balance from the roll of nausea caused by the act of taking the medicine at all.

When the brunt of the nausea had settled and his head felt just a tad steadier, Mycroft left the bathroom, forgetting to flick the light switch back off. The only thing on his mind was the darkness of his bedroom, and drawing the black-out curtains before collapsing on his bed and trying to will himself unconscious.


	2. Complete Vulnerability

The first thing Mycroft felt when conscious slowly threw him back into the land of wakefulness was pain—throbbing, intense, stabbing pain. His entire world had been relegated to a single point, and his head and neck felt about three times too large, even lying down on a pillow. Searing pain radiated out from behind his eye, and behind the haze and mist that shrouded his mind, Mycroft wasn't conscious of anything else. Everything was muddled and fuzzy—he knew better than to open his eyes. There was a buzzing in his ears, low and droning on. He thought that somehow a fly had managed to invade the flat. A bowl of fruit must have been left out or Greg had a cookery experiment hidden away in the cupboards somewhere.

But when the bureaucrat reached a hand out from under his pillow to swat the thing away, he slapped something much larger and more bristly than a fruit fly. However, it at least made the droning stop. A cool hand covered Mycroft's so as to hold it in place, the splayed-out fingers rough and calloused against the soft back of his hand.

Mycroft instinctively sat up, only because he hadn't been expecting anyone around. He immediately regretted opening his eyes, his eyes recoiling from the sudden change in light by squinting almost shut. As a tide of dizziness came over him, his foggy mind supplied thoughts of kidnap or ransom or a slow, vengeful murder.

For just a moment, the bright light from the ceiling would seem to confirm that, and another stab of pain shot through Mycroft's head. He felt a bit woozy at the shift in position. The room was too hot, and his suit felt too tight and constricting. He could feel the anxiety flow through him at the rush of possibilities of what all was going on, and he took a shaky breath to try and steady himself.

The droning voice was back, the words rough and punctuated as they pierced through the fog. Sluggishly, he coaxed himself to relax and actually open his eyes to actually look at his surroundings. Relief flooded through him when the overly close face of his partner slowly swam into view. Grey hair, peppered with flecks of white, a bit of black still showing at the nape of his neck. There were dark smudges under Greg's eyes, and Mycroft finally recognized the bristly feeling as the stubble of someone who hadn't shaved that day.

The hand holding Mycroft's against the bristly cheek squeezed gently to remind him it was still there, the thumb grazing occasionally against the back of his hand as it traced lazy circles. "You OK? By all rights you were dead to the world."

Greg was looking at him peculiarly by the time Mycroft'd had time to process the words. As he was thinking, Mycroft pulled back his hand from Greg's face to cover his right eye before collapsing heavily back against the pillow. "Just tired—bit too much…legwork—A head-ache is all." His eyes fluttered shut of their own accord as he ground the heel of his hand into the corner of his eye. "Could you, ah… turn the light off?"

An affirmative sounding 'mmm' was the only response he heard, but the bed shifted, and soon he heard the soft flick of the switch. The lifting of pain in his eyes from the light was immediate. Even with his eyes closed, it made a difference to encase the room in darkness again. There was a metallic click to Mycroft's left, from Greg's side of the bed—likely the table lamp on the nightstand had been turned on so the other man could at least see.

The bed dipped again and creaked a little before he felt a hand massaging his temple tenderly before it pulled away. Mycroft felt a hand glide down his cheek and then over the base of his neck, along the top of the manubrium, before it moved down to pull at his now wrinkled tie. The hinge of the tie pin creaked and there was a metallic click just after—Mycroft kept his eyes closed, but he imagined Greg had set the pin on the nightstand. After a bit of grumbling from the inspector, while Greg seemed to fight with the knot from the way the tie shook and shimmied back and forth, Mycroft felt the tie slip from around his neck.

"I'll be right back, Myc." The words were a whisper right next to his ear, and Mycroft could feel the warm breath on his neck. Before he could turn his head towards the voice, the bed dipped before springing back as the weight lifted and socked feet padded away.

However, sleep was overcoming him again, so Mycroft didn't think much about the whole thing as he rolled over onto his right side and freed his arm by burying his face in his pillow. Although he didn't fall back to sleep, the man drifted in and out of consciousness. The pain drove sleep from him whenever his mind tried to retreat into its darkness.

So, he wasn't particularly aware of the clink of a glass against metal on a nightstand or the very slow dip on his side of the bed, close to his head. However, he was aware of a chilly hand hovering near his neck, ice crackling occasionally near his ear. "There was an icepack in the freezer—thought it might help. And some of the yellow pills from the box—said to take two. Figured you took the pink since their wrapper was sitting open in the bathroom."

Mycroft's brow furrowed half into the pillow even as he tried to push himself further into the pillow away from Greg. His voice was tight when he finally responded. "You shouldn'… thank you. Just—" the pause practically crackled with an intensity of uncertainty and vague confusion. "Lay it on my neck, will you?"

The bureaucrat could tell when the icepack had been lain on his neck by the slight cold and weight on his neck, but it wasn't enough with the cotton towel that he could feel separating the cold from his skin. He practically moaned in relief as he reached up with a hand to rip the towel away, irritably throwing it off the bed. The icy cold bit into the sensitive skin of his neck and cleared a bit of the haze and pain away as though the ice could simply tame the fire flowing in his veins.

If a mattress could shift in a vaguely uncomfortable manner, then Mycroft thought this one did as he groaned in relief. Distantly, his thoughts continued to tell him that it was obscene to be so happy, but the pain had even consumed Mycroft's composure. He was in the privacy of his bedroom, after all. With a heavy sigh, having taken a deep breath as if that would help, Mycroft dragged the ice pack away from his neck as he rolled onto his back. Now, he draped it the gelatinous mass diagonally across the right side of his face, covering the affected eye.

The haze seemed to come away as the icy feeling seeped into the skin around his eye and numbed some of the pain. As his mind cleared, some of Mycroft's usual decorum and need for discretion returned. This was not something that he wanted exploited, not even by Sherlock. He opened his uncovered left eye, shifting slightly so he could look at Greg in the low-light. "I apol—" Mycroft paused a moment as he looked over the familiar white shirt and black trousers Greg wore to work, his brow furrowing momentarily in confusion. "Did I, ah… forget an evening in?"

"No…"

All of the sudden, the hands were back at Mycroft's shoulders, this time pushing back the suit jacket back off them. "Left my coat this morning, and I was going to go to the pub and have a night with the fellas from work. Figured I'd better grab it first rather than freeze walking home." First Greg eased the left sleeve off. "I was just going to pop in and out—figured you wouldn't be home yet—but I saw your umbrella and shoes." Then he lifted Mycroft's shoulder just a bit to be able to slide the rest of the jacket off and out from underneath Mycroft.

Somewhere between the point the ice had started to numb his face and the low drone of Greg talking, Mycroft's eye had drifted shut again and he hovered in the liminal space of wakefulness and sleep.

"Better, yeah?" Greg's hand lightly shook Mycroft's shoulder when there was no response. The eye fluttered open again in response.

"Mmm, better." Mycroft let the icepack slide off his face and onto the pillow as he sat up on his elbows before leaning back against the headboard. "You… mentioned medication, Gregory?"

Greg's face seemed almost a blur to Mycroft as a range of emotions flew across it. And then, the inspector was turning around to snag the juice and the yellow pills up off the nightstand on Mycroft's side. A hopeful smile crept across the man's face as he gave Mycroft the medicine and glass. "Mum always said a bit of sugar helped these. You had some cranberry juice in the fridge."

Rather than take the medicine dry, this time Mycroft took a small sip of the juice before downing the pills, drinking the rest afterwards. Greg had only filled the glass a third of the way. The juice was still cool, and tasted heavenly if only because he was parched and it was sweet and fluid. The haze was creeping back over his consciousness without the ice to act as a buffer. When Mycroft just stared at the glass like he'd never seen one before, a tender yet firm hand took it from him and set it back on the nightstand, dragging him back to reality.

"Why are you still…" There was a hesitancy in Mycroft's voice that had nothing to do with the pain. He looked at Greg's inscrutable expression a moment before trying again. "Why are you not off to the pub now, instead of here playing nursemaid?" Mycroft reached up to cradle his eye again with the heel of his right hand.

"God, Mycroft," Greg sighed heavily. "I can go to the pub any free night, but you needing me right now is more important." His grin was rakish but full of love as he slid his legs onto the bed so he could recline, Mycroft sliding over enough to accommodate him. "And a hell of a lot rarer." The usual eyebrow-raise and droll statement didn't come, but Greg's smile grew wider at Mycroft's reddening ears.

When Mycroft lowered his gaze to his lap as his face reddened as well, he made an irritable sound as his eye caught the golden glint of his pocket-watch chain. He carefully fished the pocket watch out of the waistcoat pocket, unlatching it from the button before setting it on the nightstand on his side of the bed.

"Might I ask a small favor then?"

"Probably do ya a large one even, love." Apart from Mycroft's ears turning a darker shade of red, he didn't show much more embarrassment. The bureaucrat's eyes were growing glassy again, and his pupils were dilated and unfocused. "Mycroft?"

A small cough came as Mycroft's eyes focused on Greg's face finally. "Could you assist me… with the buttons?" Mycroft gestured vaguely towards his waistcoat before flexing his hands and leaning heavily against the headboard.

The crow's feet at the corner of the inspector's eyes seemed to grow deeper even as his smile seemed to grow softer. Leaning down to kiss the younger man's forehead at the tip of the widow's peak, Greg's hands easily popped the buttons one by one. Mycroft shifted so as to accommodate Greg as he slid the vest off one arm then the other. Greg's eyes looked from one end of the bed to the other, Mycroft watching as he did. Greg may have left Mycroft's wrinkled suit jacket on the floor next to the bed, and it took every bit of memory on how much pain there'd be for Mycroft to not race off the bed and hang everything up properly. As it was, Anthea would have to have them sent off again for a good pressing because of his falling asleep in them.

"Just keep everything… together, if you would." Apart from a few gravelly cracks, Mycroft's voice sounded rather normal. He knew that this was an ebb in the pain, likely to be followed by a rise in pain later unless the migraine broke in the meantime.

His cufflinks were easy to remove—a couple quick turns of the wrist and they were off. Then, he slid the sleeve garters off one at a time. Finally, Mycroft stretched his arm out to set them next to the pocket watch as Greg was popping the buttons of his shirt. 'Movement, followed by a break,' Mycroft's mind chanted to him. So, he leaned back and closed his eyes again while Greg pulled the shirt tails out to pop the last buttons.

Greg's hands skimmed lightly over Mycroft's upper back as he helped the younger man slide the shirt off his shoulders. Before Mycroft could change his mind, Greg had dropped the shirt and waistcoat on top of the jacket on the floor. Then, as an attempt to make sure that the topic wasn't coming up again, Greg took advantage of the slight shift in Mycroft's position to start kneading at the tense shoulders and neck.

"Are the pills helping?"

The only response was a positive 'hm' that grew stronger when he pressed at a particularly tight spot at the junction of shoulder and neck. Mycroft groaned as Greg dug his thumb into the tense muscle and pressed along it going from shoulder to neck and back. There was an audible pop along finally, and Mycroft moaned in response as he slumped back against Greg's shoulder before leaning back against the headboard, some of the tension leaving his face as he closed his eyes.

"Yes, finally. Could I trouble you for more of the cranberry juice?"

"'Course you can. I'll just grab me a beer while I'm at it, and we'll relax." Just from the tone of voice, Mycroft could hear some relief and gladness, and at least in his mind's eye Greg was clicking his heels together as he made his way back to the kitchen. A pleasant thought out of a very long day, at least. When he leaned back and tried to stretch his legs, Mycroft remembered that he had yet to take off his trousers and socks. The garters that kept the socks taut prevented him from stretching his calves comfortably.

His hands weren't so clumsy that he couldn't work a button and a zip, so the trousers weren't overly difficult to take off. However, he needed to sit up and lean over to see the straps of the sock garters in the low light as well as reach them.

These garters had been a present from Sherlock—one that likely hadn't been intended as more than a bad gag, but they were still from his little brother, so he'd kept them. They had vertical stripes of every color of the rainbow, repeating the whole way around the band. They rather clashed with his deep red socks, but that was part of the fun of wearing them. No one else needed know, so he could do as he liked.

After sitting completely upright, Mycroft had taken a moment to just breathe through the wave of dizziness that had washed over him. The pain was subsiding from the amount of pain reliever he had taken. However, the pain relievers really only masked what was actually happening. Mycroft had rather hoped to be back under the sheet by the time that Greg had returned, so as to preserve some semblance of dignity when he was feeling so vulnerable and exposed. However, he heard the clinking of ice before he saw the silver hair come through the bedroom door as he was still unhooking the garters to loosen his socks.

"Mycroft!" Greg's eyes had washed from head to toe of the younger man as he stopped and looked at him from the doorway. Mycroft was clad at this point in black boxers, red socks, and rainbow garters. The bureaucrat only spared his partner a bare glance as he continued his task.

"What? You're not the one that cannot…" Mycroft trailed off as Greg started laughing while he walked closer to the bed.

"I can't believe you kept those!" He pointed to the sock garters with his beer before he sat down at the edge of the bed on Mycroft's side, holding the glass for Mycroft in his left hand as he watched Mycroft finish unlatching the garters and pulling the clips off the socks themselves.

"They were from Sherlock!" Came an indignant grumble from the eldest Holmes.

One of Greg's eyebrows twitched, but he didn't say anything more. His eyes were occasionally trailing up the toned legs to where they disappeared into the legs of his boxers. Nevertheless, the inspector deliberately dragged his gaze back towards his knees to watch Mycroft pull off each sock. The garters soon joined the cufflinks on the nightstand, while the socks were relegated to the floor with a resigned sigh from Mycroft. After Mycroft had covered himself with the sheet and relaxed against the pillows again, the inspector held out the half-glass of cranberry juice—with ice this time— to him.

"Actually, love," Greg started as Mycroft started sipping at the fruit juice. "Sherlock wanted to get you the ones with the pirates and hearts. I managed to talk him into something… less garish? He wouldn't settle on anything less than 'completely undignified'."

Regardless of how the rest of the day had gone, Mycroft hoped that they could relax tonight and sleep late the next morning since his partner had volunteered to stay with him. Greg had plenty of sick days, and a lot of good will by the name of 'Sherlock'. Mycroft's mind was coming up with plenty of ways make up for taking up Greg's pub night. Though, Greg loved the chance to take care of Mycroft just as much, so it wasn't something that Mycroft needed to do.


End file.
